Hey guys and gals,

Well this is going to be a summary blog of the weekends events cos as you know I have been away in the field doing my Univerisity Marine Science Project sampling at Port Stephens over the past 2 days with Chris. It was mostly fun with lots of learning (fun - fun!)

So basically all day Friday I spent preparing for the sampling, making sure we had all our equipment and chemicals for the preservation of my Trypaea australiensis (or for the google-spammer "Ghost Shrimp"). Chris came to pick me up (and alas the gear as I doubted my skills of carrying 10kg+ of ethanol etc on my Vespa baby).

We had to be up at 4:30am on saturday morning to be at Newecastle Uni. by 7am to meet my helper who is doing her honours. So we basically spent all day traversing across four sites along the southern side of Port Stephens yabby pumping for the little buggars so that I can take them back to the lab and compare thier diet composition based on the autochthonous and allochthonous materials within coastal estuarine systems.....yes, it's as interesting as it sounds!

So we finally called it a day after an exhausting lengthy sampling time and headed on the 2 hr drive home where we crashed onto the couch and watched DVD's forcing oursleves to not give into the screaming urge to sleep knowing it would screw us up for tonights sleep. Eventually we went to bed at about 9pm as for sunday morning we had to be up at 3am.....-.-

So we woke at 3 and left by 4am for another full day of back-breaking manual labour with an emphasis on shrimp genocide!! mwa-ha-ha! So while you were rugged up and sleeping (well apart from Ori who was on msn both mornings at 4am on msn when I was leaving!?!?) I was out in the field...cold, wet and covered in smelly mud...and loving it! :D On sundays sampling while I was pumping I scooped up what i thought was a harmless baby octopus until I had it in my palm i realised it was in fact a Blue-Ringed Octopus!!!! Luckily it was dead and not likely to kill me on the spot! We also sadly found a dead Stingray which had been slaughtered and had its barb removed by some ass-hats who need a good kick to the head!

So anyway, I start my lab analysis this thursday which will be good cos then I'll finally have some tangible data to start statistically analysing which means im so so close to finishing its crazy! 1.5 months and counting!!!!


yeeee-ha!! Massive beach party at my place this November!!!

Kweh~!